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I. DESCRIPTION FOR ACCURACY
21. Aim.—The purpose for which we describe any¬thing determines in large measure the best method to employ. We may, for example, wish to describe our church so that a stranger might be able to recog¬nize it, or a friend construc a clear image of it in his mind's eye. Such a description calls for clearness, completeness, accuracy; and we choose such methods of procedure as will best accomplish our end. Quite different is it when we wish another o share the impressions that the church has made on us,—to 'catch a sense of its quiet charm, its cosiness, its har¬mony of rich coloring, its stateliness, its magn!ficence of proportion—whatever has appealed most strongly to our feelings or imagination. Of course, a single description may serve both purposes, and frequently does: no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between them. Yet it simplifies the whole matter if we take up the two kinds of description separately, consider¬ing first what we may call, for convenience, Descrip¬tion for Accuracy. Our aim is to deal with objects simply as they exist in the mental image of a close and dispassionate observer. Clearness and correct¬ness are the essential things. Fullness of detail must be left to the writer's judgment. 22. Field and Point of View.—The field should be determined at the outset, and the boundaries clearly defined, at least in our own mind. If a home is to be described, it should be e ear whether it be a house only, or a house and garden, or a house and neighbor¬hood, or a farm. with its numerous buildings and denizens. Only by thus determining what shall fall, as it were, on the plate of our camera, can we decide how far we shall try to go into detail. The quaint decorations over the door, the green shutters on their old-fashioned hinges, the loosened bricks in the chim¬ney,—these things we notice when, concerned only with the house, we move close up to it. But when we take our stand at a distance, such details escape us, and it is the white fence with the stately gate¬posts, the elms planted just within, and the bushes bordering the garden-path, that fall within our field of vision and the scope of our description. This determining of the point of view saves us from another kind of error,—the inclusion of details that could not possibly be seen from the single point chosen. A glimpse of what is within the house might be obtained through the open door, but no more than that; nor would the trellis and arbor behind the house come within the limits of the picture. But here we must distinguish. Nothing is to pre¬vent us, if we wish to include all these details, from shifting our point of view—once, twice, many times— so long as we make perfectly clear to the reader just what change has been made. We may enter the front door, glance into the room to the left, pass up the winding staircase to the wide hall, and so, de¬scending by back stairs, issue out upon the garden behind the house: the reader follows clearly every change of position. Such a description becomes, vir¬tually, a series of minor descriptions, each rather roughly sketched, perhaps, yet fulfilling its own pur¬pose well. In certain subjects—a city's streets, a park, a mountain trail—this method is the only practical one; but in using it we. cannot be too careful to see with the eyes of the reader; else we are likely to assume a knowledge that he does not possess, and in a moment to involve him in perplexity as to just where he is supposed to have jumped to, since last he had his bearings. 23. Arrangement and Proportion.—We are now in a position to consider the order of procedure and the number and order of details. 1. Beginning.—Details, of course, will not come first, except now and then for the sake of variety or to arouse special interest. More natural is it to begin by indicating, without undue formality, the point of view that has been chosen, if there be only one, or, if more than one, that from which the best general impression can be obtained. This general impression should be conveyed succinctly, and, if possible, so accu¬rately that no reconstruction of the mental image may be required. Some indefiniteness is perhaps allow¬able at this stage, that the filling in of details may be less likely to necessitate readjustment. The valley lay before us like the pit of an amphitheatre. We stood, as it were, on the brink of the stage—a platform of precipitous 'flock which dropped sheer beneath our eyes some two thousand feet. Below, we could see the semi¬circular floor of the valley stretching away almost perfectly level for a radius of fully three miles. From the farther edge of this, in front and on either side, the hills rose in regular succession, with only a gap at the extreme right where doubtless the outlet was. , In describing a small object, the point of view may be unnecessary, but it is still important to regard the object first in its more general aspects. If we begin the description of a man with his nationality or his occupation, our reader will properly imagine only such attributes as will probably be found to belong to the individual in question. Should we begin, on the contrary, by describing him as a ruddy- nosed person, the reader may go quite off the track by imagining him as walking with an unsteady gait or presiding over a bar. A utensil is best described by naming first the use it is intended to serve. By following this up with a general idea of its shape and size, we have well prepared the way for a compre¬hension of details. For example: A crossbow is an implement of warfare, looking much like a combined bow and gun. The missile is projected in the manner of an arrow, by a taut bowstring, but it is aimed and released as in firing a gun. 2. Order of Details.—In the matter of order there are two natural methods, from which we may choose the one that best serves our purpose. One method is to give precedence to those details that are most prominent, either from size or position. Were we describing a farm from a hilltop, or a city from a boat off shore, such would be the most natural plan of procedure. Some prominent object having been de¬scribed, we may use that as a centre about which the other details may be grouped, seeing to it that as each new detail is brought in, its relative position is, as unostentatiously as possible, made clear. It requires no little care to use the adverbs of place so that they will fulfil their functions satisfactorily. From my perch on the hillside I could look down and see the familiar features of the farm in an unfamiliar way, as a bird would see them. Just across the road which skirted the bottom of the hill, the roof and the white gable of the house could be seen through the maple-trees that shaded its front piazza. To the right the eaves projected low over the path that led past the lawn, at the side, back to the vegetable-garden behind and to the right of the house. Beyond, the ground dropped suddenly and stretched back from the house in a level valley of checkered fields, with here and there a group of elms or poplars. The river, in a long line from left to right, bounded the fields, and beyond it rose the low hills that shut in the valley. To the left of the house the farm-buildings stretched out in a long line,—first the big unpainted barn, with its wide doors, out of which protruded a half-filled hayrack; then a square pen where the cows were standing; next a collection of hen¬houses, big and little; and finally a long shed that ran for¬ward to meet the road, and shut off a great yard littered with wagons, a threshing-machine, and a long, irregular wood¬pile. The other method is to disregard prominence and proceed more rigidly according to position, as from left to right, from front to back, from head to foot. By so doing we make it easy for the reader to hold the relative position of things in his mind, and we give him a feeling that we have a firm grasp upon our subject, that our description is proceeding steadily and by sure degrees to its completion. The disad¬vantage of the method is that it is rather rigid and formal, dealing with details as if they were all of equal importance. There are, however, subjects which particularly lend themselves to description by this method. Such would be a route of travel, a model dovecote, a chessboard and men set out for play— subjects whose details, for purposes of description, actually are of equal importance. But we need not choose absolutely between the two methods: we may combine them both; and indeed, in most cases, it is probably better that we do so. In that way we may give the desired prom¬inence to certain larger details, and at the same time fill in the picture in an orderly, comprehensive man¬ner. Thus we might describe our library, speaking first of the low ceiling, the dark coloring, the ample couch drawn up before the large brick fireplace, the light coming only from the broad windows opposite; then, when the more distinctive features of the room have been made clear, we might show how, from the double doors opening from one side of the room, shelves extend to the right as far as the corner, then how the window-seat stretches from end to end of the wide, green-curtained window; and so, detail after detail, we might piece out a clear picture of the arrangement of the furniture in the room. Or, were we describing a picture, we might begin by a brief mention of the main features of the scene—an old mill on the right, with a mill-stream running from behind out into the foreground of the picture—and then take up the details in the foreground, following the eye as it takes up detail after detail back to the further limits of the horizon. 3. Ending.—The question of how to conclude our description need give us little concern. Since an accurate description is commonly intended to give information rather than pleasure, little is to be gained by devising a formal conclusion. When all the details desired are presented, the purpose is served and the description may break off without comment. 24. Expression.—In other chapters suggestions are given regarding paragraphing, sentence structure, and words, which may be applied directly to the subject of description. It may be helpful, nevertheless, to give a few cautions here against some of the faults most easy to fall into in writing accurate descriptions. Avoid the temptation to over-paragraph. Descrip¬tions as a rule are short, and not infrequently can be included in a single paragraph. Sometimes two or more paragraphs are obviously desirable; but except in such cases, remember that sustained attention is necessary if the reader is to grasp the picture as a whole, and that this unity of effect is much better obtained in a single, sustained paragraph than in a series of short ones. Avoid monotony in sentence structure. If a series of details is to be given, one is tempted to begin each successive sentence with a noun; or to use some ad¬verbial phrase denoting place at the head of each of a long series of sentences. Clearness, of course, is the chief consideration, for which harmony of sound should not be sacrificed; but generally it will be found that a little care will enable one to combine clearness with reasonable flexibility of sentence form. Avoid the unnecessary use of technical terms. In certain cases they are indispensable, and for certain audiences they are often permissible; but it is better for the most part to avoid them, or, if it is necessary to use them, to define carefully their meaning.